


Okay, Chat. We need to talk.

by Inclaireporeal



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: First Aid, Gen, Identity Reveal, Scary implications of things that kwamis said in that one episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 14:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17530457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inclaireporeal/pseuds/Inclaireporeal
Summary: Marinette and Adrien deal with the supernatural secret keeping abilities of their Kwami, Alya responds correctly to a medical emergency, and Chat Noir teaches Ladybug to flirt. Not necessarily in that order.





	Okay, Chat. We need to talk.

**Author's Note:**

> Miraculous: The Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir does not belong to me, but I am a huge fan. This fic hasn’t been Beta’d, but I’ve read through it carefully. I’d love to hear your feedback.

Ladybug rolled left under the blast from _Literally Deconstruction,_ the wall behind her turning to dust _._ As far as she and Chat Noir had been able to tell, this akuma had been created by a particularly obnoxious university homework assignment, which made the copy of _Huckleberry Finn_ that it was wielding more threatening than usual.

Eyes wide, she tried searching for anything they could use to keep the akuma down while they destroyed the book. Finding nothing in the abandoned warehouse the fight had eventually reached, she signaled to Chat to distract the akuma for a moment. Throwing her yo-yo in the air, she called out “Lucky Charm!”.

A red-and-black coil of flypaper dropped into her hand. Using the second part of her Lucky Charm, she looked around to see what it could be fastened to. Her eye caught on a cord-and-pulley system hanging from the warehouse ceiling. Checking to see that Chat still had the akuma distracted, she vaulted onto a beam to attach the flypaper to the hook of the cord. Jumping down to the winch that controlled the cord, she subtly pointed out what she had done to her heroic partner. Nodding, he began to maneuver their enemy below the hook.

With the irate college student focused on Chat, Ladybug let the winch out, and watched in satisfaction as it snagged on the book. Quickly applying all her kwami-assisted strength to the handle, she pulled the book up and away.  Chat batted the akuma away from the rapidly-ascending book, and she leapt up to the beam again to snag it. Tearing the book down its spine, she released the blackened butterfly from the object, before starting the words of the purification ritual.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma!”

Her yo-yo snapped into place around the retreating harbinger of evil. She drew it back, and tapped the case to release it.

“Bye bye, pretty butterfly.”

She gave a sigh of relief, and dove back off of the beam to deal with her second problem of the day. Chat grinned up at her as she turned her dive into a roll, perfectly coming to her feet beside him. He started to say “Pound it!”, but she snagged his wrist before he could complete their customary fist bump.

“Chat, we need to talk,” she said. The look in her eye caused him to swallow, his bell jingling slightly.

“Er. My Lady, what is this about?” he asked, unusually serious.

“Neither of us have time to go into it now, but we need to talk. Meet me on the Eiffel tower tonight at 7.30.”

Chat nodded shakily, and she released his wrist. They quickly hurried away in opposite directions to detransform and feed their kwami.

Emil Ladeaux, university student, looked up from the floor of the warehouse, and said “Where am I?”

 

* * *

The moon shone brightly above Paris, casting her silver beams in amongst the struts at the top of the Eiffel tower. The light dappled the red and black form of France’s foremost superheroin as she paced back and forth on one of the exposed I-beams. She hardly startled as Chat Noir dropped down in front of her, retracting his baton and securing it back in the small of his back.

“Good evening, my lady!” Chat called, desperately hoping that he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt.

Ladybug sat on the beam and patted a spot beside her. “Thanks for coming, Chat. I don’t really know how to handle this,” she sighed. “You know the Ladyblog? I don’t normally follow it, because it would be … weird … to see videos of the battles we’ve just fought, but Al- that is, a friend, showed me one of the articles they’ve written recently.” _In truth_ , Ladybug thought, _Alya shows me every article they write, and I nod along politely._

  


Chat dropped into the indicated spot, his smile and blank stare telling her that he had no idea what article she was talking about, or why it was such a bad thing. Feeling a tightening in her gut, Ladybug decided to just get it all out.

“There was an article,” she began, “claiming that we were in a romantic relationship. It was called ‘Lady Noir: Ladybug and Chat Noir’s secret romance’.”

Chat blinked. “And?” he queried.

“And what! And they’re wrong!” shouted Ladybug, throwing her hands in the air.

“The Ladyblog is, generously speaking, a news source. Of course it’s going to get things wrong, Bugaboo. What are we supposed to do about it?” Adrien had been the talk of gossip magazines almost since he started appearing in fashion shows. His father had … not exactly shielded him from it, so much as sternly told him that gossip-mongering was below the Agrests, and was not something to indulge. So he was used to the media sometimes making wild claims. His lady, it would seem, was not.

“It’s just – seeing that article made me start doing research, and did you know there’s _celebrity fanfiction of us?_ Apparently it’s this whole thing where people make up stories about real life celebrities. It’s awful!”

C hat Noir rubbed a comforting hand in circles between Ladybug’s shoulder-blades. This too was something he was regrettably familiar with from his civilian life. “Well, my lady, there’s not much we can do about it. We can try to debunk it and spend the rest of our lives defending ourselves from the press, or we can ignore it and hope it goes away,” he said. “Or,” he said with a laugh, “you could actually go out with me, and then it wouldn’t be just gossip!”

“Chat Noir!” she exclaimed, pushing him away. “It’s your flirty attitude that’s got them thinking about this in the first place!”

“My flirty attitude? This attitude is the best, thank you very much,” he said, rolling back into place beside her. “Flirting is a normal mode of social interaction. This is how teenagers normally interact with people their interested in.”  _Or at least,_ Chat Noir thought,  _I hope it is. Most of my idea of normal social interaction has come from TV and the Internet. Well, Nino flirts with Alya, so it must be normal-ish._

“Interested in?” Ladybug queried, blushing  slightly . “You mean you don’t just flirt with anything that moves?”  she accused.

“You wound me, my Lady! I only flirt with cute people, of course.”

Ladybug laughed.  _ But he flirted with me as Marinette during that Evillustrator debacle.  _ She thought  _ Does that mean he thinks Marinette is cute? _

Ladybug gazed out over the skyline of her city as she composed her reply. She was struck by how little she actually knew about her partner. Outside of fights, and a few talks like this one, she had spent almost no time at all with Chat Noir. Despite what the more wishful writers among her fans seemed to think, she and Chat didn’t patrol all of Paris each night. They relied on the police and the news to let them know when another supervillain popped up.

Finally she turned to Chat and said, “So you think I’m cute, huh? Why? We’ve hardly seen each other outside fights.”

Chat’s grin slipped from his face, but he remained at her side, sort of like a reverse Cheshire. “My lady, since our very first encounter, since our very first akuma threatening the city, I’ve known you were special.  I have seen you be brave, strong, and bold. I’ve seen you be quick, clever, and caring. Yes, I may not know you as well as I’d like, but I’d like to  _ get _ to know you.”

There was silence for a moment. “Plus,” he added, his grin returning, “these suits don’t exactly hide much. I can tell that you’re a very beautiful young woman.”

Ladybug would have ordinarily snapped at him for such an overt comment, but several things that he’d said were clanging around in her head, smashing into each other, and making an odd kind of music. “Cute people” bounced off of “normal interaction” which reverberated into “get to know you”.

“Chat,” she said, slowly, “would you teach me how to flirt?”

He stared at her as though she had just hit him with a baseball out of left field. “What? Teach you how to flirt, my lady? Why?”

“ Um. Er...” It suddenly occurred to her how awkward it would be to ask Chat for tips on how to flirt with Adrien. Her brilliant idea of 15 seconds ago was looking less brilliant by the moment. “That is, you say you do it to let people know you like them. Well, I have this crush in my civilian identity, and I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to him.”

Chat’s smile dropped off his face instantly, as though she had slapped it away. “Who?” he asked, his voice wooden.

Ladybug blushed, trying to figure out whether telling Chat would make things better or worse. Finally, honesty won over and she blurted “Adrien Agrest.”

Chat’s eyes widened.  W _ hat.  _ h e thought.  _ Ladybug has a crush on me? _

Ladybug saw his expression, and hurried to explain. “It’s not just a celebrity crush!” Ladybug didn’t want him to think her shallow. “He’s in my class, and at first I thought he was going to be one of those stuck-up rich kids, but he’s really nice, and pretty of course, but he’s always so kind and funny and I just can’t figure out how to tell him I like him and I –“ she said, before cutting herself off because she started to ramble. She slowly glanced to the side to see how Chat was reacting.

Chat had an expression on his face as though  he had won 10 lotteries, and was now trying to twist his brain into the knots needed to fill out the tax paperwork.

“Please don’t be mad, Chat.” Ladybug pleaded. “It was a stupid idea. It’s just … you’re the suavest person I know, and I’m the opposite of suave.”

“Not for much longer!” Chat said.

“… what?”

“I’ll do it, Bugaboo. I’ll make you the second-coolest cat in Paris. I’ll have you cracking comfortable one-liners to your crush in no time.” He turned to her with an un-identifiable light in his eye. “Isn’t that what friends are for? To help you learn how to flirt with supermodels while sitting on top of the Eiffel tower?”

_ What? Is that what they’re for? Have I been doing friendship wrong? _ She thought, before her wits caught up with her and she asked “So you’re not mad?”

“Not to worry, my lady.” He suddenly perked up. “I need to draw up lesson plans! Can you meet me back here tomorrow night, same time?”

She nodded, and he bounded off the beam, calling “Okay, bye! See you tomorrow!” as he disappeared into the darkness.  _ What have I gotten myself into? _ She thought.

* * *

“Kid, what are you doing?” Plagg asked when Adrien returned to his room.

“Ensuring that I get a date with Ladybug, of course!”

“Adrien, it’s not going to work,” Plagg asserted, slightly gentler than usual.

“Why not?” Adrien asked with a glare. “It’s the perfect plan.”

Plagg sighed. “The magic of the Miraculous prevents anyone from figuring out your identity so long as 1) you don’t tell them, and 2) you don’t change in front of them.”

Adrien huffed. “So what, I won’t be able to notice that the next classmate of mine that starts flirting with me is Ladybug?”

“No, you won’t. The magic will keep you from noticing.” Plagg responded.

Adrien flopped back on his bed, not yet bothering to remove his day cloths. Suddenly, he sat back up with determination. “There’s just one thing to do then, Plagg. I’m going to teach Ladybug to be the smoothest damn operator in all of Paris, so much so that I’ll have to go out with her, even if I can’t figure out who she is.”

“This is still a bad idea.” Plagg warned.

“No, stop. I won’t hear a word more against it. I’m going to go out with Ladybug!”

Plagg sighed, and settled down onto Adrien’s desk as he watched the young man pace around his room muttering about what the best approach would be.

* * *

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!”

“Marinette, calm down!” squeaked Tiki. “It’s going to be okay!

“Why did I ask Chat for charm lessons, Tiki, why?” Marinette whined.

“Because we all make mistakes?” offered Tiki, hesitantly.

Marinette just fell forward into her pillow. _Focus on the bright side,_ she thought to herself. _At least maybe this will help with the Adrien situation._

After a moment she thought _Nope. This is still the worst._

* * *

Marinette made it to school on time the next day, but Adrien barely did. He looked slightly worse than normal – which still put him in the top 5% most beautiful people of all time. For all he looked tired, Marinette thought his slight bed-head looked great. _It even looks a bit like_ Chat’s she thought. 

As he slid into his seat before class, Nino asked Adrien why he looked as though he’d been up so late.

“Lesson plans.” was all Adrien got out before Mme. Bussier called for the class’s attention.

_Lesson plans,_ Marinette thought.  _I wonder what that means. I hope his father isn’t keeping him too busy._ She was jerked from her thoughts when Mme. Bussier asked her a question, and she had to scramble for an answer.

* * *

This time it was Chat Noir who was pacing and waiting for Ladybug to arrive. When she swung up at speed, skidding to a stop on the beam above him, he called out “My Lady! I’m so glad you made it. I worried you’d been held up.”

Ladybug looked at the large clocktower across the square, which now read 7.31. “Right ...” she said. “Well, Chat, How are we going to do this?”

He beamed up at her from the dark, his smile so bright it seemed to be floating in the blackness unsupported. “You’re having trouble working up the nerve to talk to him, right? So we’re going to drill you until you use flirty one-liners in your sleep. Okay, so pretend I’m Adrien ...”

* * *

The next two weeks seemed to fly by. There were three akumas, 10 days of homework, and numerous pieces of life large and small. On top of them all seemed to float Chat’s lessons. (“Okay, parry, quip, repost. Again!”) Only six lessons so far – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday – but each night Ladybug dreamt about the time she spent with the lanky black cat, so it felt like there were more of them. (“Repeat after me, I think I’m _falling_ for you.”) In and amongst the frankly ridiculous advice, she felt like she was finally connecting with her partner as a person. (“If you need to delay, ...”) He liked Anime, but he didn’t speak Japenese – instead, he spoke Chinese with a voice which occasionally cracked on the high accents, although he denied it. (“Don’t forget the importance of puns. Quick, what’s a pun involving umbrellas?”) He didn’t like his father, and his mother had vanished when he was small. (“If all this fails, and the topic turns dark, let it drop and be somber.”) Chat’s story reminded her a bit of Adrien, for all that they didn’t seem alike. (“When you go to dip him, remember you won’t have superstrength.”) She worried about the potential to figure out his identity, but he assured her that the Miraculous’s magic would protect him, and Tiki confirmed it. (“One two three, one two three, yes, just like that.”) Perhaps they grew closer, perhaps she just got more comfortable with him. She hadn’t thought it possible, but it seemed to be true. At the end of their sixth lesson, she waved him goodbye, calling out “I hate to see you go; what are the Chat-nces you’d come back to my place?” almost by reflex. He’d laughed, and waved her goodbye, and zipped away on his baton.

* * *

That Thursday at school, Marinette was trying to fill out the last question on her homework worksheet as she hurried up the stairs before class. Unfortunately, she was so distracted that she missed the top stair, and went careening forward into someone’s back.

“Excuse me,” she said, before her brain really caught up. “But I think I might be falling for you.”

She immediately blushed as she heard what she had said, and looked up to find Alya’s surprised face looking down at her.

“Damn, girl!” she said. “What was that?”

Marinette blushed even harder. “I’ve been getting flirting lessons.”

“Flirting lessons?” Alya asked. “From whom? Do I need to beat someone up for hitting on my innocent bestie?”

Marinette realized what big trouble her mouth had gotten her into this time, and looked down at the floor and mumbled something. Alya grabbed her chin and brought it up, saying “None of that. Who was it?”

Deciding the truth couldn’t possibly be worse than whatever Alya would make up if she didn’t tell her, Marinette answered “Chat Noir.”

“Chat Noir!? You met one of Paris’s superheros, and instead of sending him to me for an interview, you got him to teach you how to flirt. I’m speechless!”

“Don’t be mad, Alya, it’s just -” Marinette began before Alya interrupted.

“I’m not mad, I’m impressed! You _are_ going to give me all the details though,” she said. Glancing down at her watch, she added “After class. We’re about to be late.”

* * *

Adrien had brought a packed lunch today – not a rarity, it just required a small fib to Nathalie that he was going to work on a group project during lunch. And it meant he avoided a trip back to the cold manner. He sat beside Nino at one of the tables where his best friend was watching Alya and Marinette with amusement.

“Adrien, bro, you’ll never guess what happened,” Nino began.

“Marinette has been getting flirting lessons from Chat Noir!” Alya finished.

_Flirting lessons from Chat Noir,_ thought Adrien.  _That’s odd, I could have sworn I only gave them to …_

The three other teens at the table jumped in surprise when Adrien fainted forward into the table, and began twitching. Alya, who had taken First Aid as part of being a babysitter said “He’s seizing! Marinette, call 1-5. Nino, go get the first aid kit and an AED.” Alya went around behind him, and gingerly pulled him down to the ground so he would not fall, making sure to get his head onto her folded jacket, before moving the other students back.

A moment later, Marinette was giving directions to the Ambulance, and Nino arrived with the lifesaving green box. Alya made him wait until Adrien stopped seizing, and then dropped to her knees beside Adrien’s prone form.

“Adrien! Are you okay? Are you okay?” she asked, tapping him on the shoulders. When Adrien didn’t respond, she began scanning his chest for breathing. Giving a sigh of relief at the slow rise-and-fall of his chest, Alya rolled him onto his side, and covered him with the shock blanket from the First Aid kit.

“I’m going to meet the Ambulance!” Marinette called, before jogging to the front of the school.

A few minutes later, she led the EMTs back into the courtyard. Alya explained to them what she had seen and done as they did their own assessment of the young boy. They assured everyone they had done exactly the right thing, before loading Adrien onto a stretcher, and carrying him away.

The courtyard seemed to pause, breathing. And then the three friends slumped down on the ground in shock that _Adrien Agrest had just had a seizure_ and _we just dealt with an emergency._ And then their classmates crowded around, talking and questioning, their words making a barely-permeable wall of sound. Finally, the period bell came, and they retreated back to their classroom for History.

* * *

It was days before they heard from Adrien again. Marinette would later learn that his father had had him moved to a private hospital, so her ill-considered plan to sneak into Paris General as Ladybug to see him likely wouldn’t have worked.

The doctors were perplexed – otherwise healthy, although slightly skinny, teen boys did not suddenly develop seizures without massive head trauma. Eventually, however, they let him return to school, just in time for exams.

Marinette had another worry over the course of that week – Chat Noir had missed their scheduled suaveness lessons. After their next akuma battle, she caught him and asked.

“Chat! Where were you last night?”

“Excuse me, my lady? Were you expecting me?”

“For our flirting lessons!”

“Flirting lessons? Purrrlease tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Chat? You … you don’t remember?”

He silently shook his head no. Internally, Chat Noir was panicking. _Oh no, what is she talking about? Is this related to the missing memory the doctors told me to look out for? How can I explain that I’m missing memories when I can’t explain how I found out?_

Ladybug was shaken out of her daze by beeping coming from her earrings. She shot one last glance at Chat, her expression unreadable, before ordering “You. Me. Picnic on the Eiffel tower. 7.30. Don’t be late.”  She then turned and ran off before she detransformed.

* * *

When Chat Noir arrived on the Eiffel tower, Ladybug had spread out a quilted blanket and set down a basket of delicious-smelling cheesy rolls. She was staring off into the distance as he fell onto the blanket beside her, as quiet as his namesake.

“My lady! What’s all this?”

Ladybug turned to stare at him. “Chaton. Sit, eat some rolls, and let me tell you a story,” she began. “For … stupid reasons, I asked you to teach me how to flirt. We started meeting on the Eiffel tower every other evening. You, in your incredibly silly way, taught me. We came to be better friends, I think. And then you vanished, I didn’t hear from you for 5 days, and then you seem not to remember anything I’m talking about. What is going on?”

Chat fidgeted for a moment, kneading the soft cloth of the blanket beneath them. “I don’t know for sure, bugaboo, but I think something bad happened. I was going to school in my civilian identity, and I had a seizure during lunch. My father moved me to a private hospital where I was watched, so that’s why I couldn’t make contact. The doctors warned me about things to be worried about after seizures, and missing memories is one of the danger signs.”

“Hmm,” said Ladybug. _What could have caused Chat’s seizure? This sounds remarkably like Adrien’s story. Is there an akuma that’s laying low? Some kind of disease?_ “Tell me everything you remember surrounding the seizure. Maybe we can work out what caused it,” she demanded.

“Erm, well I don’t remember much. I was eating lunch when it happened, and some friends helped me and called the Ambulance - My friend Alya provided First Aid. My friend Marinette called the Ambulance. Then I was carted off to the hospital … ”

As he spoke, Ladybug felt a sudden rush of blood in her ears, making it hard to hear his words. A headache started pounding on the inside of her skull to the beat of her pulse, and her limbs grew heavy. _Alya provided first aid … to Chat … to Adrien. I called an Ambulance … for Adrien … for Chat. Adrien is … is … is …_

Chat Noir startled as Ladybug curled into a ball, her hands against her temple and started whimpering, her face contorted in a mask of pain. He didn’t understand what was happening. _Oh gods! What do I do? Think,_ he thought to himself. From the darkened recesses of his mind, a memory floated up.

“The magic of the Miraculous prevents anyone from finding out your identity,” Plagg had said.

Chat Noir latched onto the thought desperately. “I’m Adrien Agreste!” he blurted out, hoping that it would fix whatever was happening to his lady.

Almost immediately, Ladybug straightened up, her head clearing. “What? Chat? Adrien? Oh my gods! It’s so obvious! That’s why you’re always gone when an akuma attacked, and why you always claimed Adrien was safe, and Oh Chat, your hair! And your stupid-beautiful eyes!” Ladybug exclaimed. “How was I so blind? Oh Tiki …“

Ladybug slumped against him in relief, before tensing again. “Adrien! I caused your seizure! Oh, I’m so sorry.” She turned to him, looked him dead in the eye, and said “In the daytime, I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Now it was Chat’s turn to jerk in surprise. Once he understood the situation, he rolled back on the quilt laughing. He would have fallen from the side of the tower, had Ladybug not reached out and grabbed him by the tail. She hauled him back up onto their shared platform, and gave him a look that demanded to be let in on the joke.

Between handfuls of laughter, Chat choked out “you asked me for lessons on how to flirt, with myself!” before collapsing again.

Ladybug began to chuckle, until both the superheros were helpless on the floor. When they were laughed out, they lay side by side and looked up at the dusting of stars just visible through the city lights. The faint breeze blew across them, carrying the gentle chill of night. Almost unconsciously, Ladybug curled up under Chat Noir’s arm, her head resting on his chest.

They were silent for a long time, just staring up at the sky and thinking about being superheros, and magic, and crushes, and the person that now lay beside them.

“Chat Noir,” Marinette began, “I think we need to have a long talk.”

**Author's Note:**

> Remember that being a superhero does not exempt you from needing to actually *talk* to your love interests about things.
> 
> Go remind your paramour that you love them (if applicable). Or tell them that you're secretly a re-incarnation of an animal-themed superhero. Whichever.


End file.
